


Said the Roach to the Wasp

by zombified_queer



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Character Death, Gen, Irken physiology, Parasites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 03:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16233542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/pseuds/zombified_queer
Summary: The wasp leads its envenomed prey to the burrow, using the roach's antennae as a leash to guide it.Dib finds out more about Irken physiology than he ever wanted or needed.





	Said the Roach to the Wasp

**Author's Note:**

> I've developed a minor morbid obsession with jewel wasps. They're very pretty and efficient in how they hand their prey.

"Dib-stink."

It's a whisper that entices Dib further into the depths of the lab, one hand on his camera, the other touching the water pistol on his hip.

"It ends here, Zim!" Dib calls.

Something metallic skitters in the dark. The lights in the hall go out, leaving Dib in the dark. Taking the water pistol, he fires blindly, hoping he hits something.

Instead, something hits him. Hard. Dib can't tell if his eyes are open or closed as he whirls, face hitting cool tiles.

* * *

"For ten of your filthy years," Zim explains, pacing back and forth, twitching, it seems, "I have studied you. Your species, your hobbies, everything about you inferior humans."

"Let me go, Zim," Dib demands, twisting in the metal cuffs. 

"Silence!" Zim coughs, dry and rasping, clutching at his chest. "Zim does not need your stupid words."

Dib grinds his teeth, trying to force the cuffs open, feeling vulnerable strapped down to the table. 

"And Zim is dying."

Dib blinks. "You're what?"

"Dying," Zim repeats slowly. "But worry not. Invaders can continue with a sufficient host. You, Dib-monkey, are a suitable host."

"What?" 

"I'm going to lay an egg in your filthy guts," Zim says, grinning. 

"Zim—"

"You can thank me later." Zim waves a gloved hand dismissively. 

One of those metallic legs extends from Zim's PAK, pointed like a syringe, and buries itself in Dib's neck. Something fills his blood, warming him and paralysing him at the same time.

Zim is all business, sliding Dib's shirt up, gloved fingers pressing, assessing the human with hums and mutterings. When he's satisfied, Zim drags a gloved claw along what Dib had always assumed was one piece of black fabric. For a moment, Dib's confused, the Irken smooth as plastic. It's not until he sees the slick spine prodding out of of green flesh that he understands.

It's an ovipositor.

He's really going to have Irken eggs implanted in him.

It's not exactly how he'd pictured this moment, really, maybe with that girl who was definitely a witch at the occult store or maybe the guy with the piercings who'd hit on Dib for looking mysterious at that bar once or maybe even—

The spine sinks in deep, hard keratin in Dib's flesh, embedded between his organs. That cut off any thought of anything else. He should feel some sort of pain, panic maybe. Instead, he's sluggish, barely managing to lift his hand and he only feels more full with the spine in him, as if the nerves responsible for pain won't connect right between brain and body.

The spine splits, two perfect halves parting, forcing the hole wider, rearranging Dib's innards in a wya that should be mindnumbingly painful. But the wound in his neck throbs, making him feel warm, as safe as one can be with an Irkan organ rearranging him. Zim hisses at the way Dib's flesh resists. 

With another hiss, Zim's ovipositor widens, a dark shape moving along the fleshy tube. An egg. The cold, wet weight of it settles somewhere between Dib's stomach and his liver.

Zim cackles until he coughs, ovipositor retreating back into his body.

And then Dib blacks out.

* * *

He wakes up in his own bed, still dressed. Dib presses fingers to his neck, but there's no trace of the wound. Pulling off his coat and peeling his shirt off, Dib stumbles to the bathroom, flipping on the light. In the mirror, there's no wound, no scar, nothing. It's like the whole thing was a dream.

Dib presses his fingers to the place he'd seen the ovipositor go in, wondering if the egg's still lodged in his chest. His hands still tingle, fingers a dead weight from whatever venom Zim's stuck into him.  
There's only one way to find out and Dib dreads it.

There's a scanner in his desk, easy to self-check for alien implants or parasites. He runs it over his chest, looking over the readouts. According to this, there's nothing in his chest.

He puts the scanner away and pulls up his laptop, researching and reading until he falls asleep.

* * *

He decides to head to Zim's base. It's an impulse, a reflex.

An instinct.

So he gathers his things, throws on his coat. He's out the door and down the street before he's even aware he's doing it.

Zim's base has stayed more or less the same. Ill-fitting to the neighbourhood, so glaringly conspicuous, and yet entirely unnoticed y anyone from the cul-de-sac. Dib shudders. But maybe that shade of green wasn't so bad after all.

He shakes his head.

Something stings, deep in his abdomen, lke razorblades dipped in acid. Dib hisses, but ignores it, pressing a hand to the pain and stumbling into Zim's yard. 

The front door's unlocked.

"Zim!" Dib calls. "I've infiltratd your base!"

No answer. Everything is quiet, GIR settled in front of the teevee to watch something on insects, too absorbed in that and some plate of nachos that reek like dead things to notice Dib at all. Dib shudders, watching a wasp inject its egg into the soft flesh of a caterpillar, looking away pointedly. 

He takes the lift down into the lower levels of the base.

Down here, the power's kept to an absolute minimum, as if the base itself is hibernating. There's that pain again, lower this time, more toward his guts that his stomach and Dib hisses.

"Zim!"

No answer.

He didn't really expect one. He continues through the winding halls, keeping to the ones that have their emergency lights on, feeling more like a moth drawn to a bonfire with each step.  
In one room, at the very end of the winding path, there's a PAK hooked up to the wall, electricity surging through wires into it.

It's undeniably Zim's and yet the Irken is nowhere to be found.

That pain returns, more insistent, waves of it making Dib keel over, clutching at his belly. It takes him a moment to realize he's gone from clutching at flesh to trying to keep his guts in, something green pulling itself from pink flesh.

The PAK detaches, detecting a suitable Irken, however small and underdeveloped. In a moment, it attaches itself to the Irken.

_Zim._

It's a name and a whisper from the human on the floor, blood pooling on the tiles. The new Zim watches, taking Dib's chin in one clawed hand, watching the life drain from his eyes.

"Computer," the Irken orders. "Remove biohazard."

"I gueeeeeeess so," the computer whines. 

In only a few moments, the Irken is dressed in a proper Invader's uniform, finding he's a bit taller than this predecessor.

In only a few moments, the lower rooms closest to the incinerator reek of burned flesh for the second time that day.


End file.
